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Why am I smiling so widely in this picture?

Because our 5-year old Parker is taking the picture.

I gotta say, I’m pretty impressed. Maybe this is a potential career path for him?

(picture taken by Parker Allain at The Cultured Pearl in Rehoboth Beach, DE - July 2008)

I’m on the internet every day. Sometimes it’s just for a few minutes here and there, other days I’m logging in 8 hours or more. Here are the sites I am on every day.

• GMail - to check email obviously. GMail is a no-brainer to me. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have one. You can access it everywhere, it has the best interface I’ve ever used, and it’s Google. Who doesn’t love Google? I check my email from my iPhone when I’m out and about, but normally GMail is the first place I go when i get in front of a computer.

• Google Reader - I’ve got 96 subscriptions in my google reader, a number I’m pretty comfortable with. I categorize my feeds into things like “My Peeps”, “Voices”, “Spiritual”, “Sports”, “Development”, “Writing”, “Tech News”, “Music News”, and “My Blogs”. (i’d get into my favorite feeds, but that’s another post)

• Yahoo Fantasy Sports - In my opinion it’s the best interface going for Fantasy. ESPN is a bit slicker in design, and I do like their football product, but for fantasy baseball (which i check every day) i like the familiarity and reliability of Yahoo.

• Prayers For Blowouts - My sports/faith blog. If one of the other writers makes a post, I get the update in my Reader, but I still like to take a look at the site every day to make sure it’s still there looking swell. I also like to check My Mint to see how many folks are checking the site and where they’re coming from.

• ESPN.com - I know some people get there sports news elsewhere, but I still go to the four-letter to get my sports news. While I’m there I’ll check on Billy Simmons to see if he’s got anything new for me to devour. (If I’m strictly looking for scoreboard info, I usually use Sportsline.com…I just like their interface better)

• Other sites I will probably hit up while I am online: my twitter, facebook, and the 5-day forecast.

At this very moment I am enjoying the sweet sweet sounds of Derek Webb.

Last night Erica and I - along with our good friends Jake and Kim - trekked into Philly to see Chris Martin and his band of merry men otherwise known as Coldplay.

Before going to the venue, we headed into Philly to get some eats. A tip from the locals sent us to Paxia, a mexican BYOB place on the corner of 8th and Christian. (Jake and Kim were fascinated by the BYOB thing…as were some of my family when they visited from MA. is this a Pennsylvania thing? Restaurants that don’t have liquor licenses so they let you bring your own alcohol? I’m not sure)

Anyway, we didnt have any B to BYO, but we did get a few appetizers and entrees. The food was decent. Appetizers were better than the entrees. I’m telling you this in the blog, because I’m not the type of person to tell a waiter “Ehhh, it was just ok”. Jake on the other hand, is that type of person. He told our waiter “the chicken was dry”, which made us all uncomfortable. So we, in turn, gave Jake a hard time about it for the rest of the night, even though there’s nothing wrong with being honest with your waiter…or is there??

Anyway, onto the show, which was great. Here’s Erica and I in Section 109 of the Wachovia Center, waiting for the show to begin. (you can even click on these pictures to see them bigger, just in case you need a larger shot of me looking like a crazy-eyed madman)

If you must know, tickets were just over $100 each for our seats. Yeah, kinda steep i guess. Apparently if you wanted to purchase a men’s t-shirt it was $40. Women’s t-shirts were $35. Programs for the night were $20. Parking at the Wach was $12. Thinking pleasant thoughts about Coldplay set you back $10. They even charged you to say the name “Coldplay” - $1.99 for the first 5 mentions, 10 cents for each additional mention. Ridiculous.

What can i say about the show? Well, I loved it. The setlist included most of the songs I wanted to hear. (except I would have loved “talk” from X&Y). They played a bunch from their new album, which was a good thing. And they closed the show with “Lovers in Japan” and “Death and All his friends”, which are probably my two favorite songs on Viva La Vida, so i went home happy. (if you’re curious about the setlist, it was similar to this.)

Here’s our view of the stage. Apparently I shot this picture right as Chris Martin was performing cold fusion with uranium atoms.

All in all, great night. Really was. We even got out of the parking lot in under 5 minutes.

In fact, it would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that dry chicken. Oh well.